STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 87 



trees to destroy the pests which, unmolested, will inevitably 

 destroy the fruit, and also to protect against the fungous diseases 

 which so radically mar the appearance of the crop. Spraying 

 must be resorted to by each and every grower if he hopes to 

 realize from his orchard. To neglect is suicidal, for prices in 

 all the centres are fixed by arbitrary standards, and buyers are 

 critical in the grading of the fruit. Strange as it may seem, the 

 majority seem unmindful of the lessons and negligent of this 

 all-important safeguard. 



It is not my province to classify or treat in any way the myriad 

 classes of insect life against which you are obliged to contend, 

 but I desire to discuss this great question of insecticides, with 

 sole reference to public health and the future of this industry. 

 In so doing attention must be called to some familiar facts. 

 When these insect pests first appeared and the cry went up for 

 relief, our scientists naturally turned to the active poisons as 

 affording the easiest, quickest and most effective results. 

 Arsenic, a mineral and a most virulent poison, killed these pests, 

 and at once formulas were prepared and instructions given for 

 the use of different combinations having Paris green (arsenic) 

 as the base. These, intelligently applied, did effective work in 

 destroying insects, and so came to be the chief reliance, until 

 this year throughout the length and breadth of the land the pub- 

 lished bulletins on spraying have given implicit and exclusive 

 instructions for the preparation of solutions of arsenic, chiefly 

 in the form of Paris green. No advance has been made during 

 the past twenty-five or thirty years, and none attempted save in 

 appliances. Arsenic, an insoluble mineral poison, is urged to-day 

 as it was then, and is used by nearly every fruit grower who 

 sprays his apple trees, unmindful of the fact that wherever found 

 it becomes a menace to public health, and needs only to be present 

 in sufficient quantity to work positive injury. Its coming was 

 natural, for our experiment stations answered in the shortest 

 possible time the call of the people for help in freeing their trees 

 and growing crops, — its continuance is a severe criticism on our 

 stations in that they have rested on the fact that arsenic kills, 

 and have not sought for other agents, non-poisonous in their 

 nature, capable of destroying the insect pests, and entirely free 

 from the shadow of danger to man or beast. 



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